Unbound

“Scott Wasserman: President/CEO January 1, 2023 - July 31, 2023 (Retirement Date) Mr. Wasserman's compensation for the period of June 2022-July 2023 was determined at the June 2022 Governing Board of Directors Meeting. Prior to this discussion, Mr. Wasserman and the non-voting members of the Board excused themselves from the Board meeting. The voting members met with the Director of Unbound Experience who provided them with the following information which they used to determine the compensation amount. Using Companalyst, which is an independent compensation consultant subscription program, market data research was reviewed based on current market pay for similar positions. Unbound's philosophy is to target the 25th to 60th percentile of the range where the job has been matched. It is also based on current market data within the profit and non-profit industries, containing up to 500 employees and matched on job responsibilities in the marketplace. The Board considered other factors such as a comparison of compensation of executives from similar sponsorship organizations and a formal evaluation of job performance to determine Mr. Wasserman's June 2022-July 2023 compensation. The voting members then approved the annual salary for Mr. Wasserman. The substantiation of the decision of the Board's determination was maintained by the Director of Unbound Experience. Ashley Hufft: Interim President/CEO August 1, 2023 - December 31, 2023 At their June 27, 2023 meeting, the Board selected Ms. Hufft to serve as the Interim President/CEO effective August 1, 2023. Prior to the Board's selection, Ms. Hufft was serving as Unbound's General Counsel, a position she continued to serve for the remainder of the year. To reflect her increased duties and responsibilities, the Board awarded Ms. Hufft a one-time increase in pay at that time. Other Officers The compensation of the other officers (Treasurer and Secretary) and all other employees were approved by their respective supervisor at Unbound. It was based on both a written performance evaluation as well as the organization's compensation framework and planning system. Compensation changes are planned and documented in the ADP Workforce Now Compensation Module.”

“An independent accounting firm prepares the 990. The 990 is then reviewed by the organization's president/ceo and finance personnel. Any questions and concerns the organization's president/ceo and finance personnel have are addressed and any corrections or clarifications that need to be made are made. The 990 is then provided to the full board for their review. Any questions and concerns of the board are addressed and corrections or clarifications are made prior to filing the 990.”

“All board members annually disclose their involvement with other organizations, communities, employment, staff, vendors or any other associations that might potentially produce a conflict, regardless of the likelihood of an actual conflict arising. New board nominees also complete a disclosure form. When the board is to decide an issue that presents an unavoidable conflict of interest for a member, the member with the conflict abstains from participation in both the deliberation and vote. All employees annually sign a receipt and acknowledgement of unbound's employee manual. The code of conduct which forbids a conflict or the appearance of a conflict between the employee's personal interests and those of unbound is part of that review. The employee's signature acknowledges their agreement to adhere to this code and to immediately disclose a suspected conflict of interest to the president & ceo, people experience team, or confidentially through unbound's independent reporting service.”

“Unbound's articles of incorporation, audited financial statements, by-laws and conflict of interest policy along with irs forms 1023, 990 and 990-t are available for inspection at our offices. Unbound's audited financial statements and irs forms 990 and 990-t are posted on our website (www.unbound.org). Printed copies are available upon request.”

“MISCELLANEOUS INCOME - Total Revenue: 584, Related or Exempt Function Revenue: , Unrelated Business Revenue: , Revenue Excluded from Tax Under Sections 512, 513, or 514: 584;”

“Unbound's mission is to walk with the poor and marginalized of the world. 1. We provide personal attention and direct benefits to children, youth, aging and their families so they may live with dignity, achieve their desired potential and participate fully in society. 2. We invite people of goodwill to live in daily solidarity with the world's poor through one-to-one sponsorship. 3. We build community by fostering relationships of mutual respect, understanding and support that are culturally diverse, empowering and without religious or other prejudice. Grounded in the gospel call to serve the poor, unbound is a lay catholic organization working with persons of all faith traditions to create a worldwide community of compassion and service.”

“Total grants for the sponsorship program were $111.13 million in 2023. At the end of 2023, a total of 259,462 individuals in Latin America, Asia and Africa were sponsored through Unbound. They included 228,721 children and youth, 30,534 elders and 207 candidates studying for the priesthood or religious life. Following are examples of achievements in the sponsorship program, as sponsored individuals and their families partnered with local Unbound teams to identify specific challenges they must overcome, set their own goals and formulate plans to achieve them. Unbound's sponsorship program connects sponsored individuals and their families with sponsors and supportive local communities of staff members and other families in three regions of the world: Africa, Asia and Latin America. Through sponsorship, individuals and families have resources and a solid support network to chart their paths out of poverty. In 2023, Unbound had programs in 18 countries including Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. (As Chile ranked at the top economically of the countries where Unbound works, the organization concluded its outreach there at the end of June 2023 to focus resources in areas of greater need.) Sponsorship connects people across geographic, economic and social boundaries. It enables the development of relationships based on listening, encouragement and mutual respect. Sponsors - through their monthly financial contributions and correspondence they receive from their sponsored friends - can experience a sense of connection with someone in another part of the world and satisfaction knowing they are helping another person reach their inherent potential. Sponsors can also write to their sponsored friends to offer encouragement and build rewarding relationships. Unbound had 210,230 sponsors from the U.S. and around the world at the end of 2023. Sponsored individuals and their families partner with local Unbound teams to make program and benefit decisions that help them meet their basic needs and develop their potential over the course of their time in the program, which can be up to 18 years or more. Sponsored individuals and their families use financial assistance to help meet needs such as education, nutrition, housing improvements, technology, transportation and health care. They also have access to leadership and economic development opportunities related to financial literacy, skill development and income generation. The flexibility of the program and Unbound's cash transfer system of benefit delivery allows families to use the funds to meet their specific needs. Sponsorship requires active participation from families as the program is highly personalized. With support from social workers and other local Unbound staff, families take a central role in shaping the sponsorship program and forming support networks to encourage each other and hold each other accountable. Small support groups of parents and guardians, mostly made up of mothers, are key to the sponsorship program's success. Mothers are the primary leaders in Unbound. They know best when it comes to meeting their children's needs, and Unbound listens to them and learns from them. Mothers of sponsored children join small support groups and often become leaders by serving their communities and planning program activities. Mothers participating in Unbound have taken advantage of micro-savings and credit opportunities to meet urgent family needs or start or boost small businesses to generate income. Parents have also formed cooperatives to meet community needs and provide income for members. Outcomes of sponsorship vary but typically relate to education, leadership development, improved health and nutrition status, dignified housing, skill development and increased income through livelihood opportunities for families. Monitoring”

“Monitoring activities and evaluation methods Unbound conducts financial and program audits of projects on a regular basis to ensure that financial resources provide intended benefits and services, and sponsored members are empowered to direct their own development. In addition, the organization performs quality checks on letters and photos from sponsored friends to their sponsors, and monitors member retirement rates and sponsor retention rates. Unbound collects educational attendance and performance data and documents the final education level achieved by sponsored members leaving the program. Unbound projects around the world conduct evaluations in their local contexts to determine outcomes for sponsored members and their families. Methods include surveys of sponsored members on income and skill development, focus groups on attitudes and behavioral changes, interviews to document empowerment, mapping to capture the intended and unintended outcomes of the programs, case studies to highlight success stories of entrepreneurs, and review of educational records of scholarship students to track career preparedness, among many others. Organization-wide program evaluations focus on four key domains: education, economic status, community participation and empowerment. Empowerment refers to one's ability to make decisions for oneself and act freely in a way that is intentional and goal oriented. In 2021, Unbound engaged with The Canopy Lab, a consultancy firm, to conduct an external evaluation to better understand if the Unbound program helps sponsored families exit economic poverty. The Canopy Lab designed a mixed methods study that was administered in five program sites around the world. The Canopy Lab's analysis showed positive results in four of the five sites regarding a decrease in poverty over length of time of participation in the program. The fifth site yielded more complex results indicating increased perceptions of resilience in households with longer participation in the program; however, further analysis will be needed to better understand the overall economic impact on families. Overall, longer participation in the program was found to have an association with a greater sense of ability to weather shocks like COVID-19. Another consistent finding was the higher likelihood of saving with participation in Unbound. A higher proportion of Unbound families engaged in savings compared to their communities. Moreover, for those households who did report engaging in savings, the evaluation found that families that have been in the program longer were less likely to save toward basic needs and more toward non-basic, goal-oriented and long-term needs. These encouraging signs regarding savings show concrete potential to improve the next generation's chances of exiting economic poverty. Unbound expanded the use of a methodology entitled Unbound's Goal Orientation powered by Poverty Stoplight in 2023. The methodology allows participating families to define poverty and then measure their own progress as they set and work toward goals to exit poverty. All 31 Unbound program sites completed orientation on this methodology in 2023. Each program site also collected baseline surveys, reaching over 200,000 Unbound families around the world to self-assess their level of multidimensional poverty. Combined with a personalized mentoring process, families work to overcome their self-identified deprivations. In 2023, with the survey responses coming in from Unbound families, community-level analysis and reporting was initiated to understand contextually specific needs and achievements. Some of the highlights of the findings include: * "Family" is cited consistently as a source of motivation across program sites, reflecting the importance of community and support for Unbound families. * Program sites show a trend of longer timelines for achieving housing-related goals, emphasizing the complexity of these challenges. Housing and infrastructure are pr”

“Families Sponsorship impacts the sponsored child and the entire family. Unbound's direct work through a personalized benefit model and parent groups means families can best allocate resources for their children and direct how the program supports their development as families. Most sponsored children have representation in the program through small parent/guardian groups. These groups provide the space for families to have a voice in the program and be part of a supportive community, addressing two significant components of poverty: lack of choices and isolation. In 2023, two program locations in India and one program location in Kenya conducted local evaluations to understand the utilization of sponsorship funds and impacts on sponsored members. The focus of these evaluations was to understand where the funds were being utilized, how transparent these utilizations were, and how these utilizations impacted the level of education of sponsored members. The findings showed that sponsorship funds have had an influence in families' attainment of goals that they have set at the beginning of each year. The studies also highlighted that the funds have helped them achieve their collective family goals, complete higher educational levels, start new income-generating activities/businesses, build more concrete and higher quality houses, access health care facilities to improve their overall health condition, and improve family relationships to build more united families. In 2021, entrepreneurship grants were awarded to entrepreneurial sponsored family members in Latin America. Results from these evaluations showed entrepreneurs experienced a wide range of positive results from reduced production time, improvements in general business practices and the ability to reach new clients through virtual platforms. Entrepreneurs who received the support also reported attitudinal changes such as an increase in goal orientation, self-esteem and personal satisfaction. In 2022, the grants were piloted in six locations in Asia and Africa. Local evaluations of these pilot programs sought to answer questions about the impact of entrepreneurship on the economic wellbeing of Unbound families and potential contribution for business expansion and skills acquisition among the entrepreneurs. In 2023, a regional evaluation focusing on Latin American projects was conducted with the entrepreneurs. The findings from these evaluations, together with evaluation lessons from local program-designed evaluations in Asia and Africa, were used to make programmatic improvements. In 2023, Agents of Change initiatives were initiated and implemented in 15 Unbound program countries. The last two program sites will be implementing the Agents of Change grants in 2024. In 2023, $522,950 in Agents of Change grants were awarded to groups of sponsored families to support community improvement projects. Beyond the benefits the communities received from the completed projects, participating group members experienced an increase in psychological assets of agency. There is a significant increase felt in community inclusion after the completion of projects. Participants also have significantly more interaction with people from other social groups and significantly fewer perceived restrictions to socialization than people who did not participate in the Agents of Change grants. In 2019, a local evaluation in Kisumu, Kenya, focused on understanding the factors that were stopping the members of the parent groups from taking loans from their group's cooperative called Borneka SACCO (Savings and Credit Cooperative). They found out that 54% of the respondents had never taken a loan from the SACCO, mostly because they felt like the regulation that qualifies the members for larger loans limited them in terms of when and how much they could withdraw for a loan. The team and the SACCO members are reviewing as well as educating the members on the guidelines and regulations of the loaning process to”

“The Following are examples of achievements in the Unbound Scholarship Program. Unbound's founders believed that people living in poverty have ideas, skills and leadership capabilities to confront the challenges they face, and with access to resources and a supportive community, they could succeed. The Unbound Scholarship Program is one way that vision is being realized today. The scholarship program assists students from underserved communities with resources to pursue secondary, post-secondary and vocational education. Along with academics, the program focuses on service to the community and leadership development. It includes a selection process for applicants that recognizes students with financial need who demonstrate a participatory attitude, perseverance, commitment to service and a desire to be leaders in their communities. While education reduces poverty, its cost can be prohibitive. Many students must choose between paying for school and using income they earn from part-time or full-time work to provide for their families. This leads to higher dropout rates at each level of school. Unbound scholarships make an education that was once out of reach accessible. Scholarships help students in communities around the world achieve their educational goals, follow their chosen career paths and serve the larger community. In 2023, scholarship grants to Unbound program sites totaled more than $3.9 million. Scholarships were awarded to 9,079 students in Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania and Uganda. (Scholarships were funded in Chile through June 2023, when Unbound ended its outreach in the country to focus resources in areas of greater need.) Scholarships help with needs such as tuition and other school fees, technology, internet access, transportation, books and supplies. Students contribute what they can toward their educational costs, as Unbound scholarships are intended as supplemental assistance. The average annual cost of studies per Unbound scholarship student in 2023 was $706 USD, while the average scholarship amount awarded per student was $356 USD. The percentage of educational costs covered by the scholarship amount varies depending on location. Many scholars are Unbound sponsored youth who need financial help in addition to sponsorship support to complete their educations. In 2023, 57% of scholarship students were also sponsored. Qualified non-sponsored students are eligible for scholarships and represent 43% of those receiving awards. Unbound scholars participate in community service as a requirement of the program. Examples of service may include tutoring children, teaching literacy and health workshops, planning activities for elders, helping with correspondence between sponsored children and their sponsors, providing technology expertise, and performing office work or other tasks related to their fields of study. Mothers of sponsored children have also been recipients of Unbound scholarships. In the Telangana program in India, for example, many mothers expressed regret that they didn't have opportunities to continue their studies when they were growing up. As a result, in 2022 the staff created the innovative Kalala Sakaram Scholarship Program for mothers of sponsored or formerly sponsored children. "Kalala Sakaram" in the Telugu language means "Dreams Come True." In 2023, the program had 42 mothers participating and striving to meet their educational goals. A number of former scholars have joined Unbound as staff members after they graduated. Unbound programs globally have reported that about 40% of their staffs are made up of former scholars, sponsored members or other program participants who chose to give back through employment with Unbound. They bring to their work a wealth of knowledge and a special perspective on the program and their communities. In addition, it has been noted”

“In 2022, four program locations in Madagascar, Colombia, Kenya and the Philippines conducted local evaluations to increase understanding and utilize those results to improve their respective elder programs. The focus of these evaluations ranged from how elders are coping with social isolation and loneliness, to what kinds of services were effective for elders, and even mapping their journey in the Unbound program. The results of these evaluations were mixed. While about 88% of elders in Manila reported continuing to feel a sense of crisis due to the widespread effects of the pandemic, they highlighted using physical, economic, emotional, psychological and spiritual mechanisms to cope with those crises. In Nairobi, 78% of elders reported feeling very satisfied with the support and encouragement they are receiving from Unbound. This evaluation also showed a high level of technological literacy among elders in Nairobi, with over 97% of elders feeling comfortable receiving information through phone calls and 69% of elders able to access their funds through mobile money-wallet services. Feedback from sponsors Unbound recognizes sponsors and other benefactors not only as donors but, first and foremost, as full partners who make a direct impact and transform lives in a global community of compassion. Both sponsors and sponsored individuals have much to gain from the sponsorship relationship, and toward that end Unbound is committed to helping sponsors become more aware of the realities of global poverty and grow in human solidarity. On an ongoing basis, Unbound surveys sponsors about their sponsorship experience. In 2023, the results were: * 90% indicated they were either very satisfied (58%) or satisfied (32%). For the quarterly Sponsor Satisfaction Survey, 95% of sponsors indicated that sponsorship had made an impact on them in ways such as informing their worldview, having the chance for a practical way to help someone in need and enrichment of their lives, among others. This question is also on the exit survey, where 96% of exiting sponsors indicated that sponsorship has impacted them by informing their worldview, having the chance for a practical way to help someone in need and enrichment of their lives, among others. Unbound also asked sponsors how likely they would be to recommend the organization to a friend or colleague. Survey responses in 2023 yielded a "Net Promoter Score" in the "Excellent" range. The metric is commonly used by companies and organizations to gauge loyalty. Yet another indicator of a quality sponsor experience is the number of people - 32,984 at the end of 2023 - who sponsor more than one child, youth or elder through the organization. Perhaps the most significant indicator of a quality sponsor experience is that Unbound maintains a high sponsor retention rate. Unbound ended 2023 with a sponsor retention rate of more than 85%.”

“In past years, Unbound has also initiated qualitative evaluations of the scholarship program with alumni from Guatemala, the Philippines and Kenya, utilizing a group mind-mapping process and individual interviews to explore long-term outcomes. Among the key findings were: * Education as a key outcome: As the sponsored child's enrollment in school is a requirement of the program, it is not surprising that education was mentioned as an outcome. Alumni reported the significance of the impact of education by naming it as a key outcome that has always stemmed directly from Unbound and connected to the organization's work. * Hope: A subtle connection is emerging between the outcomes of hope and education. While it is not present on all maps, it has been present in all countries. A connection between hope and education can be seen on both maps from Nairobi alumni, one map from the Philippines and one map from Guatemala. The presence of this connection across the globe adds strength to the relationship between the outcomes. * Community Participation: Another outcome of the program as expressed by alumni was higher community participation, also mentioned as "humanity "charity." Community participation involves reaching out to the wider community, including, but not limited to, Unbound. They expressed that, through a range of activities, they were encouraged and motivated to participate more actively in their communities - be it through charity or using their skills to solve issues or starting their own business and providing opportunities to others. They expressed that such participation in their wider communities ignited and improved the sense of responsibility they felt toward others around them. * Gratitude and giving back: The feeling of gratitude and the action of giving back were both connected and common across the ripple maps in Guatemala, the Philippines and Kenya. A number of youths in Nairobi shared the different kinds of youth groups they had started with other members of their communities. Participants expressed how individuals and communities in poverty might focus internally on what little they have, but through Unbound they instead began to see the strengths and assets they have. This gratitude for what they had and for what was shared through Unbound spurred a desire to help others, whether family, friends or strangers (just like their sponsor did). The most significant, long-term outcomes of the Unbound program were overwhelmingly real and intangible. Housing and health, education and work were all present in the lives of Unbound alumni, yet the core of the impact remaining for formerly sponsored members lies in a moral, character-centered, reflective and goal-oriented worldview. This intangible core appears to offer a foundation for the alumni to continue to build their own tangible ripples in providing for their families and assisting community members. One benefit of the ripple-effect-mapping method over separate evaluations of each outcome domain is that it more clearly demonstrates links between physical and psycho-social-spiritual development. This makes an excellent case for the personalized attention, program activities and relationships that complement tangible program benefits. These components can also be called benefits.”

“Change in uninsured annuity obligations - -9761; unrealized gain/loss on foreign currency - 1921; unbound - phillippines investment income - -3;”